Lights
by ShackledinSilver
Summary: same story, re-uploaded. Harry is lost in a dessert of ashen corpses and death, finding no way to escape, lost to everything.


Disclaimer: I stake no (legitimate) claim to Harry Potter.

Note: I kind of fell in love with this one.

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><p><strong>Lights<strong>

Harry stood in a barren wasteland. He had never seen this place before; with its dark, roiling storm clouds overhead, the threat of an imminent storm. He took a step forward, into where, he didn't know. As his foot fell upon the hard floor beneath him, a gruesome crunch assaulted his ears. Looking down, he saw the bones of countless animals, stark white against the dark, muddy brown of the soil underneath. He stopped, stomach twisting uncomfortably. He took a closer look at his surroundings, turning slowly on the spot, moving as little as possible.

There was a pile to the right of larger bones, and as he recognized them as human he saw glinting silver scattered among them. As much as it made him sick, he walked the few yards to get a closer look at the mountain. The silver turned out to be the masks of Death Eaters, reflecting the tumultuous sky above, barely connected to the bare bones of the skulls beneath them. As he inspected the mask closest to him, he gasped, recognizing it as that of Lucious Malfoy's. He fought back the bile as he stared at the mask, unable to look away. A single drop of water landed on the forehead of the mask, leaving a trail of polished metal as it ran sideways down the nose, and over the cheekbones to disappear into the pile of remains below.

He looked to the sky as more rain fell, gathering in both speed and number as they plummeted towards him. He reached a hand up to wipe at his glasses and turned back in the direction of where he had come, looking at the straight line of the horizon; blurry from the rain, yet unmarred by buildings or people.

He began to walk, moving faster as he ignored the sickening crunch of the bones beneath him. He began a full-out sprint, screaming until his voice grew hoarse, straining his eyes against the wall of rain pressing in on him from all sides. He couldn't tell anymore if the water on his face was from the sky, or his own eyes, but it did not matter. He called out for someone, anyone, to come and help him, but all that answered was the steady thrum of the rain hitting the ground. He shrunk into himself, shaking, and wrapped his arms tightly around his chest, heaving from the effort of running for so long. He looked back to the mountain, but could not see it – due to the weather or the distance he did not know. He glanced wildly about him, hoping beyond hope that he would find _something._ Three yards from him he spotted it; he couldn't be sure it was anything, really, but he noticed a spot that was different, slightly darker, subdued. He walked cautiously towards it, and squinted through the rain as he came upon it. Walking around it, it turned out to be a small shack, no more than two rooms at the most.

Opening the door, he stepped into pitch blackness as the door slammed shut behind him of its own accord. A chill ran down his spine, but he couldn't tell if it was the house or the damp cloak now plastered to his skin. Lighting the tip of his wand with a murmured _'Lumos'_, he turned to look at the door behind him, but found, to his growing uneasiness, a blank wall, devoid of anything but the wood paneling it was made from. He could still hear the _pat-pat_ of rain hitting the roof, in time with the frantic beating of his heart. They both crescendo-ed dramatically, until Harry felt like he couldn't breath. He clutched at his chest, doubled over, panting until suddenly, it stopped.

He straightened slowly, cautiously, and looked around again. The silence was deafening to his ears. He wiped the wet hair from his face and moved farther into the house, making slow progress by the wand light. _'Nox' _he murmured softly, only to replace it with a quick _'Lumos Maxima'_. Able to properly see, there was a solitary door in the far wall, and he quickly made his way too it, anxious to be rid of this god forsaken place. As he stood in the doorway, he looked into a long hallway, unable to see the end. Casting the ball of light off the end of his wand, he watched as it lit up panel after panel of dark wood, until it was just a tiny speck in the distance, where it stopped and hung, halfway between the ceiling and the floor. Puzzled, he took a step forward, but stopped as the dot began to pulsate, growing brighter and brighter, until it shone a brilliant white, and lit up the whole hallway with a wave of light. As it passed, the pin prick of his spell in the distance dulled to a soft white glow, still immobile.

He began to walk slowly down the hallway again, unconsciously picking up speed along his way. As he drew closer to it, he reached out a hand; the light looked soft, fuzzy almost, and he was overtaken with the strongest need to _touch._ He wanted to feel the light on his skin, to caress it with gentle touches, and hold it to him. As his finger encountered it, it seeped into his skin, until he glowed from within with the light it was emitting. It spread up his fingers and into his hand, up his arm, and into his torso; spreading until his whole being was glowing, vibrating. With a gasp, a white doe jumped from his chest and left him, in the same wave as it had before, leaving him again in pitch blackness.

This time, however, it was the darkness that began to creep towards him, silent as night, and deadly as a striking snake. Before he knew it, he was shrouded in it, consumed completely, suffocating, fighting his way to the surface, yet unable to gain any ground. He was drowning in this sea of black, choking on it, yet when his fingers reached out to grab it from around his neck, they encountered only skin, pale and smooth, unmarred, yet he was suffocating underneath it all. The black slowly turned to grey, and than faded into white.

A blank nothingness, and this scared Harry most of all. There was nothing; absolutely _nothing;_ no ground, no sky, no people, buildings, animals, anything. Nothing existed besides Harry. He looked around, panicking.

He saw beneath him the body of Severus Snape, colder and paler than usual, dead, and gasped a small _'No'._ All of a sudden, starting at the top of his field of vision, his sight went red. He reached up to wipe his eyes, and a small spot of white appeared again; looking down, he noticed his hands were covered in blood, _his _blood. He was bleeding, from everywhere. He ran, crying, rivulets of thick red liquid running down his face, and he began to scream; an ear-splitting cry of despair and pain creating a black cloud in front of him. He screamed the darkness out of him, until the red and black mixed, creating a deep shade of burgundy that lulled him to sleep; sang him into his death. He laid on the ground, painless, motionless, crying pure tears of clean water now, wishing beyond anything that it would all end; that _he_ would end.

Harry woke with a start, sitting straight up in bed. The white sheets were wrapped tightly around him, stuck to his skin by the cold sheen of sweat that adorned his flesh. He rubbed the goose bumps off of his arms and looked over at his partner, sleeping soundly, unaware of the turmoil in the man beside him.

Severus was lying on his back, sheets loosely draped over his waist, with his head turned away from Harry. Harry sighed in relief. It was all a dream; nothing but a dream. He laid back down slowly and put his head down onto Severus' chest, wrapping an arm tightly around the man's midriff. He breathed in the scent of him, the musk and wood smoke mixed with lilac and green tea, and felt calmer immediately. He contracted the muscles in his arms and held him tightly against him. Severus shifted in his sleep, turning his head and coming to rest with it nestled in Harry's mop of hair, and rolled to wrap the younger man up in his arms.

There, Harry fell asleep, content again, the misery of the dream forgotten, lost within the embrace of the man that was over twenty years his elder, his ex-Professor, his lover; lost in the arms of his soul mate; his past, his present, and the rest of his future.


End file.
